VP to hand Obama gun proposals next week

Recommendations on curbing US gun violence will go to President Barack Obama by the middle of next week, days before the president's second term begins, the vice-president says.

Joe Biden says a consensus is emerging on proposals such as tightening background checks for gun buyers and banning high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Obama hopes to announce what steps his administration will take shortly after he is sworn in for a second term on January 21. The national effort on guns comes after last month's Connecticut school shooting left 28 dead.

Later in the day, Biden is set to meet perhaps the toughest critic of gun violence policies, the National Rifle Association, which already has fiercely opposed any suggestion of new gun controls. The NRA is the country's top gun lobby.

"We understand this is a complicated issue," Biden said on Thursday, adding there is "no single answer". He called the widespread agreement so far on "total universal background checks" surprising.

As the vice-president spoke, the country's latest school shooting was reported in California, where officials said a student was wounded.

Biden, who leads the administration's push on gun safety laws, has said Obama could act on gun violence through executive action - meaning the approval of Congress would not be required.

That has unnerved some gun owners, who stand by the constitutional right to bear arms and fear their guns will be taken away.

The gun issue has rocketed into the top tier of Obama's concerns for his second term after the Connecticut shooting, where a young gunman used a high-powered rifle legally purchased by his mother to shoot dead 20 children at a primary school.

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